emacs • help

emacs • help

Note: help and version output are generated by a naïve script which tries a few variants of
<command> --help, <command> -h etc. to find the command's help and version info.
Sometimes it gets lucky, sometimes it doesn't; if the output below looks wrong, it probably is.

emacs --version (return code: 0)

GNU Emacs 24.5.1
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GNU Emacs comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You may redistribute copies of Emacs
under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
For more information about these matters, see the file named COPYING.

emacs --help (return code: 0)

Usage: emacs [OPTION-OR-FILENAME]...
Run Emacs, the extensible, customizable, self-documenting real-time
display editor. The recommended way to start Emacs for normal editing
is with no options at all.
Run M-x info RET m emacs RET m emacs invocation RET inside Emacs to
read the main documentation for these command-line arguments.
Initialization options:
--batch do not do interactive display; implies -q
--chdir DIR change to directory DIR
--daemon start a server in the background
--debug-init enable Emacs Lisp debugger for init file
--display, -d DISPLAY use X server DISPLAY
--no-desktop do not load a saved desktop
--no-init-file, -q load neither ~/.emacs nor default.el
--no-loadup, -nl do not load loadup.el into bare Emacs
--no-site-file do not load site-start.el
--no-site-lisp, -nsl do not add site-lisp directories to load-path
--no-splash do not display a splash screen on startup
--no-window-system, -nw do not communicate with X, ignoring $DISPLAY
--quick, -Q equivalent to:
-q --no-site-file --no-site-lisp --no-splash
--script FILE run FILE as an Emacs Lisp script
--terminal, -t DEVICE use DEVICE for terminal I/O
--user, -u USER load ~USER/.emacs instead of your own
Action options:
FILE visit FILE using find-file
+LINE go to line LINE in next FILE
+LINE:COLUMN go to line LINE, column COLUMN, in next FILE
--directory, -L DIR prepend DIR to load-path (with :DIR, append DIR)
--eval EXPR evaluate Emacs Lisp expression EXPR
--execute EXPR evaluate Emacs Lisp expression EXPR
--file FILE visit FILE using find-file
--find-file FILE visit FILE using find-file
--funcall, -f FUNC call Emacs Lisp function FUNC with no arguments
--insert FILE insert contents of FILE into current buffer
--kill exit without asking for confirmation
--load, -l FILE load Emacs Lisp FILE using the load function
--visit FILE visit FILE using find-file
Display options:
--background-color, -bg COLOR window background color
--basic-display, -D disable many display features;
used for debugging Emacs
--border-color, -bd COLOR main border color
--border-width, -bw WIDTH width of main border
--color, --color=MODE override color mode for character terminals;
MODE defaults to `auto', and
can also be `never', `always',
or a mode name like `ansi8'
--cursor-color, -cr COLOR color of the Emacs cursor indicating point
--font, -fn FONT default font; must be fixed-width
--foreground-color, -fg COLOR window foreground color
--fullheight, -fh make the first frame high as the screen
--fullscreen, -fs make the first frame fullscreen
--fullwidth, -fw make the first frame wide as the screen
--maximized, -mm make the first frame maximized
--geometry, -g GEOMETRY window geometry
--no-bitmap-icon, -nbi do not use picture of gnu for Emacs icon
--iconic start Emacs in iconified state
--internal-border, -ib WIDTH width between text and main border
--line-spacing, -lsp PIXELS additional space to put between lines
--mouse-color, -ms COLOR mouse cursor color in Emacs window
--name NAME title for initial Emacs frame
--no-blinking-cursor, -nbc disable blinking cursor
--reverse-video, -r, -rv switch foreground and background
--title, -T TITLE title for initial Emacs frame
--vertical-scroll-bars, -vb enable vertical scroll bars
--xrm XRESOURCES set additional X resources
--parent-id XID set parent window
--help display this help and exit
--version output version information and exit
You can generally also specify long option names with a single -; for
example, -batch as well as --batch. You can use any unambiguous
abbreviation for a --option.
Various environment variables and window system resources also affect
the operation of Emacs. See the main documentation.
Report bugs to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. First, please see the Bugs
section of the Emacs manual or the file BUGS.